Verslag van de solidariteitsgroep in Zweden over een aantal zaken

Prosecution 1 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: 3 of July 2001 and 27 of July 2001
Prosecuted for: two instances of 'rioting'
Who: SS (20 years. German shot in leg)
The verdict of the appeal court: Prison 1 year and 8 months. Banned from Sweden for 10 years
Status: The decision has become legally binding. After a first verdict (6 months and Schengen Ban), both prosecution and defense appealed. The Supreme Court decided not to try the case. He's now in prison.
He was shot in the leg during the clashes with police in connection with the neo-nazi assault on the Reclaim the Streets party. The prosecution showed a videotape of the German man throwing stones at police and he admitted that he did it.

Prosecution 2
Date of prosecution: 4 of July 2001
Prosecuted for: Rioting
Who: 7 persons from Denmark
The verdict of the appeal court: JB prison 6 months, CW prison 5 months, RLH prison 5 months, LJ prison 8 months, JM juvenile prison 1 month, KS prison 8 months, JS prison 6 months
Status: Appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court decided not to do this case.
These seven Danes were tracked by an undercover policeman who says he saw them throwing stones at the police. He then followed them to the café were they took their hoods of. During the first trial, the prosecution showed random video footage of the riots in Goteborg where no person could be identified. The first appeal was only a remake of the first trial, confirming sentences. As the Supreme Court refused to do this case, the case is announced to the European Court of Justice.

Prosecution 6
Date of prosecution: 9 of July 2001
Prosecuted for: Preparing assault and heavy damage
Who: S B, J P J, K M, J D R, S K S (5 persons from Denmark)
The verdict of city court: acquitted
Status: Appealed by the prosecutor. The prosecutor has cancelled two appeals, for S B and JDR. Date for trial in appeal court: 6 of may 2002
The five Danes were prosecuted for preparing assault and destruction of property. These guys made big headlines when they were arrested in an apartment containing five "bombs", later proven to be five big firecrackers made out of bits of garden hose. The police maintained they would have caused "great damage". The apartment also contained some signal flares and a can of butyric acid, an acid that smells very badly it was probably going to be used against police dogs along with the "bombs". The Danes denied any knowledge of these items since they were only borrowing the apartment from a friend who was out of town. The police had followed these guys around as they made several trips into a nearby forest. The police later found a glove with butyric acid on it in those woods.
One of the 27-year old Danish activist will receive a compensation pay of 4,400 Euros after Swedish courts found he was arrested without justification during the EU summit in Gothenburg, June 2001. They were arrested when they arrived in Gothenburg on the morning of the 12th June 2001, two days before the summit, and accused of preparations for sabotage. The man spent one month in jail, before the charges against him were dropped. His name appeared in the Danish press.

Prosecution 7 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: 11 July 2001
Prosecuted for: two instances of 'violent rioting'
Who Luigino "Gigi" Longo (43 year old Italian citizen living in Norway)
The verdict of appeal court: Prison 2 years and banned from Sweden for 10 years
Status: The verdict has become legally binding. The Supreme Court decided not to try the case. He is in prison in Norway. The case is announced to the European court of justice, but that court can't influence the punishment, but it can criticizes and can order Sweden to pay a fine to the accused person.
Luigino "Gigi" Longo is a trade unionist and socialist that has been on sick leave from his work as a cook since February because of a serious heart condition. He was sentenced for being violent but the evidence seems dubious or non-existent. The second biggest Norwegian taboid Dagbladet could report the fact that the police have changed the date of their video "evidence". Originally they had footage claimed to have been taken between 12.00 and 15.00 on Thursday the 14th. Unfortunately for the prosecutor, Norwegian national television was filming Gigi in the Attac-bus heading from Oslo to Gothenburg playing guitar at this time. In fact he didn't arrive in Gothenburg until three hours later. They still used the video of a person that they thought was Gigi without dating the time of the footage. The evidence for his biggest alleged crime is however not based on this footage where a person, who the prosecution thinks is Gigi, is holding a tree trunk. 2 of the 2 1/2 years are based on him supposedly injuring a police officer with a stone in the Anti-capitalist march on Friday. Of this there is no footage, and not even a police witness seeing this has been produced. The injured policeman didn't see who threw the stone at him. The prosecution has however been able do deduce this from the testimony of another policeman who claims he saw Gigi as the only one among a "peaceful section" of the anticapitalist march throwing something. Gigi denies throwing any stone. These are the evidence for the repeated felony that have convinced the judge to give the prosecutor everything he asked for: 2 1/2 years. Gigi is still isolated in a prison cell in Gothenburg (in august 2001). Only his partner has been able to visit him (this is normal in Sweden), letters have not reached him, and he wasn't even allowed to phone his daughter at her 17th birthday on Sunday a week ago. He has been to hospital at least once during his stay, because he had breathing problems. (His family was not informed of this - not even by the defense lawyer - until much later). The family, both his ex-wife, her partner, Gigi's partner and his daughter are working for his appeal and for the campaign "Free Gigi".

Free_gigi@hotmail.com
http://home.no.net/freegigi
Donations can be sent to:
Luigino Antonio Longo, c/o Trygve Guntvedt, Friis gt. 6, 0187 Oslo, Norway
Account 05373086055

Prosecution 8 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: 13 of July 2001
Prosecuted for: Leading riots
Who J E (20 years, from Nacka, near Stockholm)
The verdict of the appeal court: 2 years and 6 months
Status: The verdict has become legally binding. The Supreme Court decided not to try the case. The case is announced to the European Court of Justice, but that court can't influence the verdict, but it can criticizes and can order Sweden to pay a fine to the accused person.
He was prosecuted for leading, "carefully" planning and instigating violent riots. A group of 5-10 of the Swedish secret police had been following him around for a month since he had been arrested during the protests in Prague. During the trial the police witnesses refused to say why they were watching him. They only said they were following orders. The sentenced is active in the swedish White Overal group Globalisering Underifran. His defence attorney, Stig Centerwall, says he has been convicted without any evidence. "I've never seen anything like this." He was arrested one kilometre from one of the riots he supposedly instigated. The verdict is, among other things, based on the fact that the 20 year old man waved his arms during a riot (he says he waved at a friend). A police witness testified that there could be "no doubt" that he directed the riot. Stig Centerwall: "It's guesswork from the police. That the court hereby finds it proven that he encouraged violence against the police suggests that they haven't tried the evidence enough. The court hasn't been as careful as it should have." Centerwall also states that the court is putting all political groups in the same category and is trying to smear the left. "It is dangerous to do so." Centerwall was thinking his client was going to be freed of all charges in the upcoming appeal. The final verdict is 2 years and 6 months. It would have been 3 years if he had been older.

Prosecution 9 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: 12 July 2001
Prosecuted for: violant rioting
Who: Paul Robinson (33 year, England)
The verdict of appeal court: Prison 1 year, banned from Sweden for 10 years
Status: The verdict has become legally binding . The supreme court did not allow a trial. He is was in prison and was released in the middle of February 2002. Paul Robinson , 33 years old librarian, trade unionist, from London, UK, was prosecued for 'violent rioting'. The prime evidence against him consisted of a 20 second long clip of videotape showing Paul, standing alone in a gap in the crowd, throwing a small rock underarm that went about two metres without reaching anybody. Paul has freely admitted that he 'threw' the rock, it was nothing more than a mere gesture to him. Paul's trial was originally set for June 30th 2001. Because the Prosecutor had only managed to interview one of the three police witnesses by then, it was delayed till July 11th when it was heard at Gothenberg District Court. The bench consisted of a judge and three local politicians. The defence was given two days to prepare its case and was not allowed access to all the video footage that the police had seen. At the start of the trial the defence were not aware of all the evidence that would be presented against Paul. Much video evidence was used. It showed general scenes of the riots that took place. Paul did not feature in any of this footage. A ten second clip showed Paul rolling a small stone underarm which travelled in a direction parallel to the police. It travelled about 2 metres and came to a halt in a gutter without landing near anyone. Paul was pictured in a side street alone. The nearest people to him were reporters. He was clearly not part of the rioting crowd. Two of the police witnesses stated that they did not see Paul throwing stones or committing any violent act. The third stated that he saw Paul throw a stone overarm at the police (video evidence clearly contradicts this statement). After presenting the evidence the prosecutor produced two stones, one small and one much larger: he said that Paul threw a small stone like the one he had in his hand farthest from the bench but he kept stating that stones like the much larger one he held in his hand nearest the bench were thrown in the riot and he kept on lifting it to draw the bench's attention to that one and away from the small one. He also told the court that Paul was tried previously for a similar offence in England even though he was found not guilty on that occasion. By saying this (which he had previously told the defence lawyer he would not) the prosecutor was attempting to show guilt by association. The verdict was announced and the sentence passed seven days later. Paul was not present in court for it. He was found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison and he received a five-year Schengen ban. He was told of his sentence by a prison warder who took a sadistic delight in its severity. Paul believed that the man was joking but a subsequent phone call to his lawyer told him that he was not. One of the things the judge said in his summing up of Paul's case was that stones were being thrown at the police from all directions so the crowd was tried as one. None of the evidence presented at Paul's trial supported this statement. The appeal took place on September 12th, 2001. The verdict remained prison for 1 year and a ban from Sweden for 10 years. Even if the evidence was deemed to be showing Paul committing a crime, then sentences for similar crimes in Sweden have usually been imprisonment for 2 months.

Prosecution 16 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: 18 of July
Prosecuted for: Rioting
Who H H (20 years, Germany)
The verdict of appeal court: acquitted
The 20 year old german was prosecuted for leading a group of five rioters and 'violent rioting'. The court says in the verdict that he was well prepared and had planned to partake in riots since he was wearing a ski mask, gloves, and protective goggles. He says he was in Gothenburg to write an article for a German union paper. The court thought this was strange since he doesn't understand Swedish... An interesting element of this judgement is that the court's chairperson (the only legal scholar of court's board) wanted to free him. The chairperson did not think that the evidence was 100% conclusive as the police's video evidence contained discrepancies regarding clothing. His objection to the verdict was exactly the same as the defence lawyer's. The chance of wining the appeal in this case was strong. He was sentenced to 1 year and 2 months and Schengen Ban. Acquitted by the appeal court.

Prosecution 20
Date of prosecution: ?
Prosecuted for: Rioting, instigation of riot, causing riot
Who: "the command central"
The verdict of city court: AB Prison 1 year 8 moths , MJ Prison 1 year 4 moths, AL 2 years 4 months, SN Prison 1 year 4 months, SN Prison 1 year 4 months, RS Prison 2 years, MW Prison 2 years, HS Prison 1 years 8 months Status: It is still not clear if it's going in appeal to the Supreme Court. In the biggest of all courtcases after GBG 2001, the court lowered their sentence in the appeal. The reason is that they rejected the only real connection between the communicationcentral and the riots: the well debated sms-messages and the telephone contact with a 20 year old person on the streets. Despite all this, the "command central" in going to around 2 years in prison each for "assisting violent riot". Their guilt is not proven as the court itself admited! But says that "what else can they been up to" and that they actually were in contact with this 20 year old person that in his courtcase got convicted for violent riot. Do we have to tell you that the 20 year old person got convicted with the strongest argument for have been in contact with the communication central? In several courtcases the prosecutor has been showing video clips of the most violent scenes for the diffrent riots that took part during the Eu-summit, even if the accused person weren't even there. In the courtcase against the "command central" they showed pictures about how sms-dataprogramms work. The whole thing started with a picture of a demonstrator pointing a gun at a cop. the picture is from Germany. One cop is going top be tried, accused for lying. The cop was working as a silent cop and went to a planning meeting before the riots. He say he wittnessed a 20 year-old person (the same that was the "command central's contact" on the street) being really agressive in his language and saying that "if some fucking cop bastards show up we'll give them a fight!". What the cop didn't know about was that a photographer recorded the meeting. On the video it's really clear that the 20 year-old person doesn't say any of this stuff and only describes the white overalls well know action of a symbolic break-in, that will be none-violent. This is not the only case that looks like this. one silent cop is "totally sure" he saw NN leave in one direction, when a video recording later on proves NN went a total different way. Another silent cop is even "totally sure" that he saw NN smashing a specific policecar window with a wooden stick. A serie of still-pictures taken by photographer Jörgen Hassler proves that the window was smashed by two persons standing on top of the car. And NN is nowhere in sight. It's on these wittnesses the court relay on when they give their sentences, so I would like to quote Rudbacks reflection in the appeal: "After this it's hard to not ask the question how often someone innocent is made guilty, when the courts take for granted that the cops statement not only are belivieable but trustworthy which is of big differance." by Nils Wadström, Aftonbladet, 18.02.2002 About the "command central", myth created by the swedish media, read also the article "Sweden is heading towards an indefinite future where justice may have no place" by Nils Wadström, IMC Sweden.

Prosecution 21 (closed case)
Date of prosecution: October 2001
Prosecuted for: Rioting, assault of police officer
Who Hannes Westberg (Boy from Goteborg shot in stomach by police)
The verdict of city court: Prison 8 months
Status: Not appealed. The decision has become legally binding. He is in prison. The second investigation on the cop that shot Hannes Westberg is closed.
Police manipulated video evidence that has been used against people in their court cases. Among others they cut out a part where one cop kicks a person in the head. From MTV footage, a lot of different sequences had been edited together to make the situation looking far more stressing for the police than it was in reality. In total over 30 different scenes are put together in the period of a few minutes. When the cops are shooting the warningshots at Vasaplatsen, sound of shotguns had been given bigger effect. As the cops showed it, all the people fled, but when you look closer at it, you can clearly see that the people running are filmed from a total different block. In the sequenses taken by the belgian fotographer Daniel Demostier when Hannes Westberg got shot, the cops had added voices of a crowd shouting "Eins, zwei, drei - nazi polizei!". A Swedish television program even send a copy of this version to Daniel Demostier who confirms that it's not on the original version.

Another prosecution for instigation of riot (perhaps this person is already mentioned in previous cases... perhaps the "command central"?). Date of prosecution: ? Who: ? Status: ?
A 24 year old non-violent swede prosecuted for instigating the riots at the police siege of Hvitfeldska. He was on the inside, "leading" (he was a "mötesunderlättare", it translates directly to "meeting helper") the meeting the besieged held to decide what they should do. The meeting decided to walk out collectivly and that the White Overals would carry their rubber-foam armor and helmets with them out of the school. When the police learned this they backed down from their promise to let everyone go and the beseiged attempted a non-violent breakthrough with swedish White Overals in the front. The police had probably learnt of the White Overals upcoming attempt at breaching the EU summit and it was probably trying to sieze the very rubber-foam armor and helmets some of the beseiged were trying to carry out of the school. Hence they wouldn't let them go. The police later bragged that they had filled three containers full with weapons from the school (probably the rubber-foam armor). "Oddly" enough, all swedish TV viewers got to see of this mighty arsenal was a bucket of cobble stones and clothes hangers ("hooks to hurt horses", according to Gothenburg chief of police, Hakan Hjaldung). He risked being sentenced to a long prison sentence and that's a really nice way for the government to reward people's effort at non-violent, un-masked resistance. A number of people have testified that he never encouraged anybody to use violence and no witness has testified to the contrary. In spite of this the prosecutor wanted the court to sentence him to between 3 and 5 years in prison. His defence attorney, Per Rudbäck, said that it is as if the prosecution is demanding higher and higher sentences for each trial. "This isn't normal". The prosecution realied heavily on two police witnesses who were very sure of themselves, during this trial. The defence, however, could show video evidence that proved that the policemen were giving a false description of these particular events. Police witnesses has been given high credebility during all of the trials... The police did manage to find 0,2 grams of cannabis on his person when he was arrested so he was sentence to pay a fine for that. Another dazzling victory for the swedish justice system.